We are coming into a new year, but this was a typical ending for an away day for Arsenal over the year - a hard fought victory at West Brom taken away by the referee’s whistle. To be fair to the men in red – including shorts for the first time since 1978 – they were not the masters of their own downfall, and Mike Dean will not be drinking in Islington tonight. On the last day of the year, we had a blast to the past as Arsenal ran out in red shorts for the first time since 1978; Many of those wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference for some parts of this encounter.
Headers were always going to be something of a concern for the away defence and after six six minutes we had the first cross of note, Matthew Phillips standing up an inviting cross to the far post, but seeing Cech save Rodriguez’s header down to his left. The next ball in would cause considerably more problems, although there would be a scramble to try and get the ball on target that was averted.
Arsenal responded well, with Granit Xhaka playing in Alexandre Lacazette with a smartly disguised pass, and Alex Iwobi’s curling effort after a quarter of an hour. In a game where both sides were keen to get forward, Jay Rodriguez was a lot brighter than he had been against Everton and caused early problems. Jake Livermore was also having a decent outing too whilst Saed Kolasinac was not going so well and his knock, earned by Gareth Barry’s trailing leg mean that his year ended early, with Ashely Maitland-Niles replacing him and bringing a change in formation. The first half ended scoreless, with a performance that would have pleased Alan Pardew; Arsenal had 67% possession in the first half but only two shots on target.
The second half started as the first ended; Alex Iwobi set up Alexandre Lacazette up front, but the free kick that he won was fired into the wall by Alexis Sanchez. West Brom had Arsenal playing their game now after just over 50 minutes and they were making good opportunities of their own, with a goalmouth scramble resulting from Robson-Kanu’s cross before Ahmed Hegazi’s shot eventually went out for a goal kick.
Shkodran Mustafi was booked for sliding on Robson-Kanu out on the right and then not a minute later Chris Brunt was booked. After this came a short period of Arsenal pressure; Ben Foster saved well from Alexandre Lacazette after lovely one-two with Alex Iwobi on the edge of the area and then the Frenchman nearly managed to squeak a shot into the goal underneath Foster only to see the shot go wide.
West Brom were falling deeper and deeper, a move only exacerbated by the withdrawal of Hal-Robson Kanu, but Jay Rodriguez’s shot forced Cech into a decent save.
The game was still crying out for a moment, however, and it did come with seven minutes to go. Hector Bellerin produced a fantastic ball to find Alexis Sanchez approaching the box, and Ahmed Heghazi was booked, leaving Arsenal with a dangerous free-kick right on the edge of the box. Who should have stepped up to take it but Alexis Sanchez, who slotted the ball through the wall under an oddly positioned James McClean into the net to send the away end into raptures.
That appeared to have given Arsenal the edge, until Kieran Gibbs’s attempted ball into the box found, purely through accident, the hands of Calum Chambers, and Mike Dean, tricked by a moment of optical deficiency, opted to point to the spot. His confusion gave Jay Rodriguez the chance to grab a point from this match, and gaining due reward for a much better showing than last week, he took it to end Arsenal’s 2017 on an undeserved and sour note.
A Happier New Year for some than others.
